Dissension
by Likeahobbit
Summary: Future!verse. Twice in the few years Peter and Hiro knew each other all that built up hurt and anger erupted. The first time ended in passion. The second time, Peter ended up with his scar.


Peter had a knack of turning up exactly when Hiro didn't want him to. When there was a fight to be had, a building to break into, or a prisoner to liberate Peter was hard to find. He disliked the violence, he said, and felt that many of Hiro's actions were only ending up further perpetrating the label of 'terrorist' the government had given him. Peter's premonitions allowed him to see what Hiro wanted of him before Hiro ever showed up at his door, and Peter used them to avoid conflict whenever he could.

When Hiro wanted nothing more than solitude, however, Peter showed up without fail. He was there six months after the explosion, on what would have been Ando's twenty sixth birthday. He was there a year later when a raid Hiro had led ended up killing a pregnant worker. He was there when Hiro began work on his timeline and refused to sleep or eat for three days.

All of those times Hiro had initially resisted Peter's comforting words and sympathetic touches but in the end his grief had caused him to break down and turn to Peter to help him pick up the pieces. During those moments Hiro was grateful for the other man's friendship, though the sense of peace he felt when Peter gently touched his shoulders or smoothed his hair out of his face left Hiro with a guilt he really didn't understand.

There were other times, however, that Hiro resented Peter's intrusion and wanted nothing else to do with the other man. Peter once commented that Hiro was moodier than a teenage girl, which Hiro allowed was a reasonable assessment of the way he felt most of the time. He was too focused on the past, Peter said, and when something didn't work out the way he wanted it to he obsessed over it. The timeline was glaring proof of that.

'You have got to stop living in the past,' Peter had shouted at him during one particularly nasty row. 'Its driving you crazy.'

'The past is all I have,' Hiro had snapped back. He'd left shortly after and the two didn't speak for almost a month.

Neither one of them ever apologized for the things that they said. After a week or so of absolutely no contact, they would seek each other out. There was always tension, at first, but there was usually a purpose to their meetings and after a while of planning or discussing their quarrel was pointedly forgotten. On some level, though, things said and unsaid must have built up beneath the surface. There was always friction between Hiro and Peter; no matter how much grief they shared there was still too much they didn't understand about one another.

Twice in the few years Peter and Hiro knew each other all that built up hurt and anger erupted. The first time ended in passion. The second time, Peter ended up with his scar.

_**April 18, 2009**_

Hiro angrily threw open the door to the loft and stormed in. It was pouring rain outside and Hiro was soaked completely through. Water dripped all over the floor but Hiro couldn't be bothered with it; he was too busy putting pressure on the flesh wound he'd gotten on his arm.

'Completely stupid and reckless,' Peter raged, catching the door as it swung back at him. 'What the hell were you thinking, anyway? Didn't I tell you we needed to take it slow?'

Hiro ignored him and headed for the bathroom, shrugging his sword off his shoulder as he did so. Peter slammed the door and locked it telekenetically, then attempted to follow.

'You're lucky you're not hurt worse.' Peter pulled his own sopping coat off and threw it on the sofa back. 'How many times do I need to tell you, Hiro? Swords never, ever win against guns.'

Hiro froze. He looked over his shoulder and gave Peter a scathing look, then stalked into the bathroom. He elbowed the door closed behind him, locked it, and wished Peter would go away.

'And I can hear you,' Peter shouted through the door. 'Mind reader, remember?'

Hiro scowled and purposely switched his thinking to his native language. If Peter wanted to be intrusive, let him be confused as well. The tactic seemed to work; from the other side of the door there was an irritated sigh and then a thump as Peter threw himself down on the couch. Hiro let out a small relieved sigh of his own and turned to the medicine cabinet above the sink. His own stormy reflection glared back at him in the mirror. Hiro hardly recognized himself anymore.

Frowning, Hiro threw open the mirrored door and reached for the peroxide and gauze. He was going to need a lot of it; the bullet had just grazed the surface but it was still bleeding substantially. Hiro could feel it pooling in the bend of his elbow.

He set his supplies down on the sink and performed a weird one armed maneuver to get his jacket and shirt off. When the wound was exposed he looked at it in the mirror, poked at it, and then hissed at the burning pain that was aroused when he did so. Dreading the sting that would come when he cleaned the cut, Hiro picked up the peroxide bottle and pondered how best to go about this one handed.

There was a quiet knock on the door.

'Let me see it,' Peter said softly.

Hiro didn't answer. He was still too angry. Angry that the mission had failed, angry that Peter had bailed him out, angry that his meticulous plans had fallen through because of a single stupid guard. Peter was right; Hiro did act too quickly most of the time but he couldn't help it. He'd been too slow once before and it had cost him dearly.

'You might need stitches,' Peter pressed.

Hiro set down peroxide bottle and leaned over the sink with his head bowed. He knew Peter was just trying to be helpful, but right then Hiro wanted to be alone so he could go over exactly what had gone wrong. If he knew what had gone wrong, he could fix it for the next time.

'I'm a nurse,' Peter tried.

'Please leave me alone,' Hiro said quietly.

'No, you'll start obsessing again,' Peter said, his voice growing angry again. 'Things went wrong, Hiro. It happens. You can't foresee everything.'

'No, you can,' Hiro snapped. 'And I could have if you'd let me go ahead a few days and take a quick look-'

'Dammit, Hiro, that's exactly what I'm talking about,' Peter shouted, giving the door a good smack for good measure. 'You spend too much time going back and forth; you're going to cause a rift.'

'I'm the one that told you about rifts.' Hiro picked up the peroxide bottle once again and, in a fit of frustration, sloshed half of it over his wound. It bubbled and frothed, stinging just as much as he thought it would. He slammed the bottle back down and cursed in Japanese while a tiny voice in the back of his mind scolded him for being so dramatic. That voice sounded disturbingly like Ando, and that made Hiro swear even more.

Peter waited quietly for a moment and then knocked on the door again. 'Are you finished?' he asked calmly.

Hiro glared at the door and didn't answer. There was a click as the door was unlocked and then Peter opened it slowly. Hiro resolutely stared at the wall as Peter came in and bent over Hiro's arm. After looking at it carefully for a moment, Peter reached for the gauze and began expertly bandaging it.

'You don't need stitches,' he said.

Hiro just nodded.

'Change it twice a day,' Peter said as he finished. He tugged on Hiro's arm until Hiro looked at him. 'I mean it.'

'I will,' Hiro promised as he extracted his arm from Peter's grasp. 'I will,' he said again when Peter gave him a skeptical look. 'I'm going to take a shower. Do you mind leaving?'

'You shouldn't, with that bandage,' Peter said but he left the room anyway. Hiro shut the door after him and spent the next fifteen minutes under pounding hot water trying to erase the faces of the men he'd killed that day.

When Hiro emerged later with a towel around his waist he was surprised to see Peter was still there, sprawled on the couch with his eyes closed and his arm thrown over his forehead.

'You're still here,' Hiro said simply.

'Couldn't leave you like that,' Peter said without moving.

'You said my arm didn't even need stitches.'

'That's not what I meant.' Peter opened his eyes and swung his feet onto the floor. He turned and looked at Hiro keenly over the sofa back. 'I know you miss him, Hiro.'

'Don't,' Hiro said, turning away quickly. 'Don't mention him, not now. Not after I killed another three people today.'

Peter didn't speak, but Hiro could feel his eyes on his bare back. Feeling suddenly exhausted, Hiro began to walk towards the place where he slept. After he'd gone three paces, he realized that Peter was no longer on the sofa, but was in fact directly behind him.

'What?' Hiro asked unhappily, without turning around. A hand, heavy and warm, settled on his shoulder. When Hiro didn't immediately pull away, another had settled on the opposite shoulder and began to knead gently. Hiro sighed and allowed his shoulders to sag.

'What are you doing?' he asked quietly.

'Quiet,' Peter whispered and Hiro felt Peter's breath against his neck a moment before a soft kiss was laid against his throat.

Hiro froze and swallowed heavily around a lump that had suddenly formed in his throat. 'Peter?'

'Sorry,' Peter whispered. His hands stilled and began to pull away, but Hiro turned quickly and caught them.

'Too late,' Hiro whispered back, then surged forward to meet Peter's lips with his own.

They were both starving for the touch of bare skin. Peter wasted no time in stripping the towel from Hiro's body and though Hiro would have liked to have taken his time in undressing his new lover his own sense of urgency wouldn't let him. They wound up on the floor, tangled together, hot and sweating as they arched up against one another. Peter used his mind reading talent to meet Hiro's every desire, which would have been infuriating if it hadn't felt so terribly good. Try as he might, however, Hiro couldn't halt the images that sprang unbidden to his mind, images of darker eyes, a wry smile, and a lithe body lying sated against the sheets while a much loved voice whispered Hiro's name.

Hiro's orgasm caught him unexpectedly and he didn't realize that tears were streaming down his cheeks until Peter paused momentarily and looked at Hiro concernedly.

'Memories,' Hiro whispered by way of explanation and pushed Peter onto his back before he could say another word.

Hiro didn't have mind reading abilities, but his common sense and clever fingers were enough to bring Peter to climax fairly quickly.

Hiro tried not to notice when Nathan's name escaped from Peter's lips as he came.

_**September 21, 2009**_

The big fight came five months later. Peter was at Niki's bar throwing back shots when Hiro found him. The entire bar fell silent as Hiro came in and furiously knocked the drink for Peter's hand.

'Where were you?' Hiro demanded. 'We were counting on you; the entire plan revolved around you getting us through security!'

'You never would have been able to get past the secret service,' Peter said, calmly levitating the shattered glass pieces onto the bar top. 'You think the President is protected by rookie cops?'

'We talked about it before,' Hiro shouted, ignoring the stares he was garnering. 'You agreed to it before. We all decided that it was the best possible course of action.'

'Well, maybe I don't think so,' Peter said defensively, leaping to his feet. The smell of alchohol on his breath was overpowering to Hiro, even from several feet away. 'You think that killing the President will make all this go away?'

At that, several partrons got up and left hurriedly. Dressed for the stage, Niki stalked over to the two men.

'Keep it down,' she hissed. 'This isn't the place.'

'No, this _is_ the place,' Peter snapped at her. 'Killing Nathan won't bring Ando back. Making the Linderman laws disappear won't bring Ando back. _Going back in time_ won't bring Ando back.'

'Peter, stop it,' Niki said through clenched teeth as Hiro's hand went to the hilt of his sword.

'Stop,' Hiro warned. Peter was right, Hiro knew he was right, and that just made things infinitly worse.

'No, this has gone on long enough,' Peter said angrily. 'I know you lost somebody. I lost someone, too-'

'Nathan is sitting in the White House hunting his own kind,' Hiro said loudly. 'He isn't _dead, _without even a name on a memorial to mark his existance.'

'Its been years, Hiro!' Peter yelled, ignoring Niki as she tried to intervene between them. 'Its time to move on!'

'Why don't you want to make things better?' Hiro demanded. 'Why are you so afraid of what you are?'

'I didn't ask for this,' Peter said.

'Nobody did,' Hiro retorted. 'But only cowards run from themselves. Nathan did it and now you are, too.'

Peter struck first, not with any of his powers but with his fists. Hiro reeled back from the blow, but before he'd even regained his footing he had his sword out. It was Niki who finally pulled them apart. She nearly had to break Hiro's arm to do so but by that time the damage to Peter's face had already been done.

'Jesus, Hiro!' Niki shrieked at him as she rushed to get a rag to stem the blood flow. 'What the hell is the matter with you?'

Peter didn't say anything; he just sat there by the bar his hands over his face while blood poured between his fingers. Hiro looked from Peter to the sword in his hands and then back again, suddenly feeling overwhelmingly ashamed of himself. He wished desperately that he could take it back, but he couldn't.

'I'm sorry,' Hiro said quietly and then teleported as far away as he could.

He didn't see Peter again for almost four months. The first time Hiro saw the scar, he almost fled in shame. Peter didn't mention what had happened, so neither did Hiro. As time went on, they slowly rebuilt their relationship to the point where they could work together once more. At times Hiro felt they were nearly friends, but that scar was always there as a terrible reminder of what he had done in his anger and grief.

It took Hiro 43 seconds to die once the bullets pierced his flesh. In the final moments, as blood filled his lungs and darkness overtook him, he found comfort in the thought that his actions over the last five years had left nobody to mourn him. With his last conscious thought he sought Peter's mind and willed him to hear.

'_Forgive me. I was foolish.' _

In the midst of battle, Peter heard and mourned his friend's passing.


End file.
